On Assignment
IN A CLOSE ENCOUNTER with chip tech
nology, GEOGRAPHIC writer Allen Boraiko
(below at left) and illustrations editor Bruce
McElfresh "beam down" to a plate of three
inch-diameter silicon wafers. In this IBM ion
etching chamber, electrically charged gas flu
oresces red as it carves circuit patterns into the
180 chips on each wafer.
Boraiko, McElfresh, and free-lance photog
rapher Chuck O'Rear (right) spent a year
probing the world of the chip-the tiny power
house behind computers, robots, pocket cal
culators, and digital watches. They found the
feat of packing hundreds of thousands of elec
trical transistors on a slice of silicon to be as fas
cinating as the computer-generated effects in
films such as Tron.
To get the feel of computer technology, Bo
raiko held a bionic arm in his left hand and
attached electrodes to his right arm. "I kept
forgetting that what I did with my right arm
affected the bionic limb," he recalls. "I was al
ways hitting myself." He has written articles
on silver, pesticides, and fiber optics.
A veteran of eight articles in the NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC, O'Rear brought his latest sub
ject close to home by investing in a personal
computer. But only he could make the nearly
2,000 telephone calls needed to explore the pic
ture possibilities
and obtain per
mission to photo
graph companies
and their closely
guarded computer
products. More
than 18,700 pho
tographs later,
Bruce McElfresh
began to select
the illustrations
for the chip arti
cle and a com-
CHARLES
O'REAR
panion story on the Silicon Valley.
O'Rear has dabbled in electronics since
childhood, but reporting on the chip opened
new doors. "At times," he says, "it was like
stepping into the 21st century."
COMPOSITEBY STEVEJENKINSFROMPHOTOGRAPHSBY CHARLESO'REARAND NATHANBENN